Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853

L. Merritt.

Maidstone.

P.S.—I always find collodion by Dr. Diamond's formula capital, and with it from five to ten seconds is time enough.

Mr. Weld Taylor's cheap Iodizing Process.—I have no doubt Mr. Weld Taylor will be kind enough to explain to me two difficulties I find in his cheap iodizing process for paper.

In the first place, whence arises the caustic condition of his solution, unless it be through the decomposition of the cyanide of potassium which is sometimes added? and if such caustic condition exists, does it not cause a deposition of oxide of silver together with the iodide, thereby embrowning the paper?

Why does the caustic condition of the solution require a larger dose of nitrate of silver, and does not this larger quantity of nitrate of silver more than outbalance the difference between the new process and the old, as regards price? I pay 1s. 3d. for an ounce of iodide of potassium of purest quality; the commoner commercial quality is cheaper.

F. Maxwell Lyte.

Replies to Minor Queries

Somersetshire Ballad (Vol. vii., p. 236.).—

"Go vind the vicar of Taunton Deane," &c.

S. A. S. will find the above in The Aviary, or Magazine of British Melody, a square volume published about the middle of last century; or in a volume bearing the running title—A Collection of diverting Songs, Airs, &c., of about the same period—both extensive depôts of old song; the first containing 1344, and the last, as far as my mutilated copy goes, extending to nearly 500 pages quarto.

J. O.

Family of De Thurnham (Vol. vii., p. 261.).—In reply to Θ. I send a few notes illustrative of the pedigree, &c. of the De Thurnhams, lords of Thurnham, in Kent, deduced from Dugdale, public records, and MS. charters in my possession, namely, the MS. Rolls of Combwell Priory, which was founded by Robert de Thurnham the elder; from which it appears that Robert de Thurnham, who lived tempore Hen. II., had two sons, Robert and Stephen. Of these, Robert married Joan, daughter of William Fossard, and died 13 John, leaving a daughter and sole heir Isabel, for whose marriage Peter de Maulay had to pay 7000 marks, which were allowed him in his accounts for services rendered to the crown. Stephen, the other son, married Edelina, daughter of Ralph de Broc, and, dying circiter 16 John, was buried in Waverley Abbey, Surrey. He seems to have left five daughters and coheirs; viz. Mabilia, wife of Ralph de Gatton, and afterwards of Thomas de Bavelingeham; Alice, wife of Adam de Bending; Alianore, wife of Roger de Leybourne; Beatrice, wife of Ralph de Fay; and Alienore, wife of Ralph Fitz-Bernard. Dugdale and the Combwell Rolls speak of only four daughters, making no mention of the wife of Ralph Fitz-Bernard; but an entry on the Fine Rolls would seem almost necessarily to imply that she was one of the five daughters and coheiresses. If not a daughter, she was in some way coheiress with the daughters; which is confirmed by an entry in Testa de Nevill: and, by a charter temp. Edw. I., I find Roger de Northwood, husband of Bona Fitz-Bernard, in possession of the manor of Thurnham, with every appearance of its having been by inheritance of his wife. With this explanation, I have ventured to include Alianore, wife of Ralph Fitz-Bernard, as among the daughters and coheiresses of Stephen de Thurnham. The issue of all of these marriages, after a few years, terminated in female representatives—among them the great infanta Juliana de Leybourne—mingling their blood with the Denes, Towns, Northwoods, Wattons, &c., and other ancient families of Kent.

I have two beautiful seals of Sir Stephen de Thurnham temp. John,—a knight fully caparisoned on horseback, but not a trace of armorial bearings on his shield; nor, in truth, could we expect to find any such assigned to him at that early period.

L. B. L.

Major-General Lambert (Vol. vii., pp. 237. 269.).—Lambert did not survive his sentence more than twenty-one years. His trial took place in 1661, and he died during the hard winter of 1683.

The last fifteen years of his life were spent on the small fortified island of St. Nicholas, commonly called Drake's Island, situated in Plymouth Sound, at the entrance to the Hamoaze.

Lambert's wife and two of his daughters were with him on this island in 1673. (See "N. & Q.," Vols. iv. and v.)

J. Lewelyn Curtis.

Loggerheads (Vol. v., p. 338.; and Vol. vii., pp. 192-3.).—Your correspondent Cambrensis, whose communication on this subject I have read with much interest, will excuse my correcting him in one or two minor points of his narrative. The little wayside inn at Llanverres, rendered famous by the genius of the painter Wilson, is still standing in its original position, on the left-hand of the road as you pass through that village to Ruthin. Woodward, who was landlord of the inn at the time Wilson frequented it, survived his friend about sixteen years, leaving six children (two sons and four daughters), none of whom however, as Cambrensis surmises, succeeded him as landlord. His widow shortly afterwards married Edward Griffiths, a man many years her Junior, and who, at the period Cambrensis alludes to, and for a lone time previous, was "mine host" of the "Loggerheads." Griffiths died about three years ago, after amassing a large property by mining speculations in the neighbourhood. There are, I believe, several fine paintings by Wilson in the new hall of Colomendy, now the residence of the relict of Col. Garnons. The old house, where Wilson lived, was taken down about thirty years ago, to make way for the present structure.

T. Hughes.

Chester.

Grafts and the Parent Tree (Vol. vii., p. 261.).—In reply to J. P. of this town, I beg to say that the belief, that "the graft perishes when the parent tree decays," is merely one among a host of superstitions reverently cherished by florists. The fact is, that grafts, after some fifteen years, wear themselves out. Of course there cannot be wanting many examples of the almost synchronous demise of parent and graft. From such cases, no doubt, the myth in question took its rise.

C. Mansfield Ingleby.

Birmingham.

The Lisle Family (Vol. vii., pp. 236. 269.).—Mr. Garland's Query has induced me to inquire, through the same channel, whether anything is known about a family of this name, some of whom are buried at Thruxton in Hampshire. There are four monuments in the church, two of which are certainly, the others probably, erected to members of the family. The first is a very fine brass (described in the Oxford Catalogue of Brasses), inscribed to Sir John Lisle, Lord of Boddington in the Isle of Wight, who died A.D. 1407. The next in date, and I suppose of much the same period, is an altar-tomb under an arch, which seems to have led into a small chantry. On this there are no arms, and no inscription. The tomb is now surmounted by the figure of a Crusader, which once lay outside the church, and is thought to be one of the Lisles, and the founder of the original church. On the north side of the chancel two arches looked into what was once a chantry chapel. In the eastern arch is an altar-tomb, once adorned with shields, which are now torn off. This chantry stood within the memory of "the oldest inhabitant;" but it was pulled down by the owner of the land appertaining to the chantry, and of its materials was built the church tower. One of its windows forms the tower window, and its battlements and pinnacles serve their old purpose in their new position. A modern vestry occupies part of the site of the chantry, and shows one side the altar-tomb I have last mentioned. This side has been refaced in Jacobian style, and the arms of Lisle and Courtenay, and one other coat (the same which occur on the brass), form part of the decoration. Two figures belonging to this later work lie now on the altar-tomb, and many more are remembered to have existed inside the chantry. The mixture of this late Jacobian work with the old work of the chantry is very curious, and can be traced all over what remains of it. The initials T. L. appear on shields under the tower battlements.

I should be glad to find that these Lisles would throw any light on the subject of Mr. Garland's inquiry; and if they do not, perhaps some of your readers can give some information about them.

The coat of arms of this family is—Or, on a chief gules, three lioncels rampant of the first.

R. H. C.

The Dodo in Ceylon (Vol. vii., p. 188.).—The bird which Sir J. Emerson Tennent identifies with the dodo is common on Ceylonese sculpture. The natives say it is now extinct, and call it the Hangsiya, or sacred goose; but whether deemed sacred for the same reason as the Capitoline goose, or otherwise, I must leave the author of Eleven Years in Ceylon to explain, he being the person in this country most conversant with Ceylonese mythology.

I now wish to call Sir Emerson's attention to a coincidence that may be worthy his notice in connexion with his forthcoming work on Ceylon.

If he will take the trouble to examine the model of the Parthenon, in the Elgin Marble room of the British Museum, he cannot fail, to be struck with its resemblance to the beautiful building he visited at Polonaroowa, called the Jaitoowanarama. The dimensions of the respective buildings I cannot at present ascertain; but the ground-plans are precisely similar, and each was roofless. But the most striking resemblance is in the position and altitude of the statues: that of the gigantic Bhoodho is precisely similar, even in the posture of the right arm and hand, to that of Minerva, the masterpiece of Phidias. On consulting his notes, he may find the height of the statues to correspond. That of Phidias was thirty-nine feet.

Ol. Mem. Ju.

Glen Tulchan.

Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. David's, 1687-99 (Vol. vii., p. 234.).—This harshly-treated prelate died at Great Wilbraham, near Cambridge, on June 3, 1717, æt. eighty years; and, from a private letter written at the time, seems to have been buried in haste in the chancel of that church, "but without any service," which may perhaps imply that there was not a funeral sermon, and the ordinary ceremony at a prelate's burial. It is, however intimated that he died excommunicated. In Paulson's History of Holderness is a notice of Bishop Watson, and of his relatives the Medleys, who are connected with my family by marriage; but the statement that the bishop "died in the Tower" is incorrect (vol. i. Part II. p. 283.; vol. ii. Part I. p. 47.; Part II. p. 542., 4to., 1840-1).

F. R. R.

Milnrow Parsonage.

He died in retirement at Wilburgham, or Wilbraham, in the county of Cambridge, June 3, 1717, ætat. eighty.—See Gough's Camden, vol. ii. p. 140., and Gentleman's Magazine, vols. lix. and lx.

Bishop Gobat was born in 1799, at Cremine, in the perish of Grandval, in Switzerland. His name is not to be found in the list of graduates of either Oxford or Cambridge. His degree of D. D. was probably bestowed on him by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Tyro.

Dublin.

Etymology of Fuss (Vol. vii., p. 180.).—

"Fuss, n. s., a low, cant word, Dr. Johnson says. It is, however, a regularly-descended northern word: Sax. Ƒuſ, prompt, eager; Su. Goth. and Cimbr. f u s, the same; hence the Sax. Ƒẏſan, to hasten, and the Su. Goth. f y s a, the same."—Todd's Johnson.

Richardson gives the same etymology, referring to Somner. Webster says, "allied, perhaps, to Gr. φυσαω, to blow or puff."

Zeus.

A reference to the word in Todd's Johnson's Dictionary will show, and I think satisfactorily, that its origin is fus (Anglo-Saxon), prompt or eager; hence fysan, to hasten. The quotation given is from Swift.

C. I. R.

Palindromical Lines (Vol. vii., p. 178.).—The sotadic inscription,

"ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ,"

is stated (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xl. p. 617.) to be on a font at Sandbach in Cheshire, and (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxiii. p. 441.) to be on the font at Dulwich in Surrey, and also on the font at Harlow in Essex.

Zeus.

Nugget (Vol. vi., pp. 171. 281.; Vol. vii., pp. 143. 272.).—Furvus is persuaded that the word nugget is of home growth, and has sprung from a root existing under various forms throughout the dialects at present in use. The radical appears to be snag, knag, or nag (Knoge, Cordylus, cf. Knuckle), a protuberance, knot, lump; being a term chiefly applied to knots in trees, rough pieces of wood, &c., and in its derivatives strongly expressive of (so to speak) misshapen lumpiness.

Every one resident in the midland counties must be acquainted with the word nog, applied to the wooden ball used in the game of "shinney," the corresponding term of which, nacket, holds in parts of Scotland, where also a short, corpulent person is called a nuget.

So, in Essex, nig signifies a piece; a snag is a well-known word across the Atlantic; nogs are ninepins in the north of England; a noggin of bread is equivalent to a hunch in the midland counties; and in the neighbourhood of the Parret and Exe the word becomes nug, bearing (besides its usual acceptation) the meaning of knot, lump.

This supposed derivation is by no means weakened by the fact, that miners and others have gone to the "diggins" from parts at no great distance from the last-mentioned district; and we may therefore, although the radical is pretty generally diffused over the kingdom, attribute its better known application to them.

It is no objection that the word, in many of its forms, is used of rough pieces of wood, as instances show that it merely refers to a rudis indigestaque moles characteristic of any article in question.

Furvus.

St. James's.

Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores (Vol. vii., p. 260.).—This, which is no doubt the proper form, will be found in Southey's Naval History of England, vol. iv. p. 104., applied to "those of old English race who, having adopted the manners of the land, had become more Irish than the Irishry." The expression originally was applied to these persons in some proclamation or act of parliament, which I think is quoted in the History of England in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia: but that work has so bad an index as to make it very difficult to find any passage one may want. Probably Southey would mention the source whence he had it, in his collections for his Naval History in his Commonplace Book.

E. G. R.

The Passame Sares (mel. Passamezzo) Galliard (Vol. vi., pp. 311. 446.; Vol. vii., p. 216.).—Will you allow me to correct a mistake into which both the correspondents who have kindly answered my questions respecting this galliard seem to have fallen, perhaps misled by an ambiguity in my expression?

My inquiry was not intended to refer to galliards in general, the tunes of which, I am well aware, must have been very various, but to this one galliard in particular; and was made with the view of ascertaining whether the air is ever played at the present day during the representation of the Second Part of King Henry IV.

C. Forbes.

Temple.

Swedish Words current in England (Vol. ii., p. 231.).—I beg to inform your correspondent that the following words, which occur in his list, are pure Anglo-Saxon, bearing almost the same meaning which he has attributed to them:—wÿrm; by, bya, to inhabit, becc; dioful; dobl, equivalent to doalig: gœpung, a heap; lacan; loppe; nebb; smiting, contagion; stæth, a fixed basis.

Eldon is Icelandic, from elldr, fire: hence we have "At slá elld úr tinnu," to strike fire from flint; which approaches very near to a tinder-box. Ling, Icel., the heath or heather plant: ljung I take to be the same word. Gat, Icel. for way or opening; hence strand-gata, the opening of the strand or creek. Tjarn, tiorn, Icel., well exemplified in Malham Tarn in Craven.

C. I. R.

Gotch (Vol. vi., p. 400.).—The gotch cup, described by W. R., must have been known in England before the coming of the present royal family, as it is given in Bailey's Dictionary (1730) as a south country word: it is not likely to have become provincial in so short a time, nor its origin, if German, to have escaped the notice of old Φιλὁλογος. The A.-S. verb geotan seems to have had the sense of to cast metals, as giessen has in German. In Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is leadgota, a plumber. In modern Dutch this is lootgieter. Thus, from geotan is derived ingot (Germ. einguss), as well as the following words in Halliwell's Dictionary: yete, to cast metals (Pr. Parv.), belleyetere and bellyatere, a bell-founder (Pr. Parv.); geat, the hole through which melted metal runs into a mould; and yote, to pour in. Grose has yoted, watered, a west country word.

E. G. R.

Passage in Thomson: "Steaming" (Vol. vii., pp. 87. 248.).—This word, and not streaming, is clearly the true reading (as is remarked by the former correspondents), and is so printed in the editions to which I am able to refer. The object of my Note is to point out a parallel passage in Milton, and to suggest that steaming would there also be the proper reading:

"Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise,From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray,Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,In honour to the world's great Author, rise." Paradise Lost, Book v.Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

[The reading is steaming in the 1st edition of Paradise Lost, 1667.—Ed.]

The Word "Party" (Vol. vii., pp. 177. 247.).—The use of this word for a particular person is earlier than Shakspeare's time. It no doubt occurs in most of our earliest writers; for it is to be found in Herbert's Life of Henry VIII., in his translation of the "Centum Gravamina" presented to Pope Adrian in 1521, the 55th running thus:

"That, if one of the marryed couple take a journey either to the warres, or to perform a vow, to a farre countrey, they permit the party remaining at home, if the other stay long away, upon a summe of money payd, to cohabite with another, not examining sufficiently whether the absent party were dead."

It may also be found in Exodus xxii. 9., where, though it occurs in the plural, it refers to two individuals:

"For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour."

H. T. Ellacombe.

Clyst St. George.

Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy (Vol. vii., p. 206.).—In reply to Elginensis I send you a quotation from Dr. Golding Bird's Natural Philosophy in explanation of this well-known phenomenon:

"One very remarkable phenomenon connected with the escape of a current of air under considerable pressure, must not be passed over silently. M. Clement Desormes (Ann. de Phys. et Chim., xxxvi. p. 69.) has observed, that when an opening, about an inch in diameter, is made in the side of a reservoir of compressed air, the latter rushes out violently; and if a plate of metal or wood, seven inches in diameter, be pressed towards the opening, it will, after the first repulsive action of the current of air is overcome, be apparently attracted, rapidly oscillating within a short distance of the opening, out of which the air continues to emit with considerable force. This curious circumstance is explained on the supposition, that the current of air, on escaping through the opening, expands itself into a thin disc, to escape between the plate of wood or metal, and side of the reservoir; and on reaching the circumference of the plate, draws after it a current of atmospheric air from the opposite side.... The plate thus balanced between these currents remains near the aperture, and apparently attracted by the current of air to which it is opposed."

Dr. G. B. then describes the experiment quoted by Elginensis as "a similar phenomenon, and apparently explicable on similar principles." (Bird's Nat. Phil., p. 118.)

Cokely.

Lowbell (Vol. vii., p. 272.).—I may add to the explanation of this word given by M. H., that low, derived from the Saxon lœg, is still commonly used in Scotland for a flame; hence the derivation of lowbell, for a mode of birdcatching by night, by which the birds, being awakened by the bell, are lured by the light into nets held by the fowlers. In the ballad of St. George for England, we have the following lines:

"As timorous larks amazed areWith light and with a lowbell."

The term lowbelling may therefore, from the noise, be fitly applied to the rustic charivari described by H. T. W. (Vol. vii., p. 181.) as practised in Northamptonshire.

J. S. C.

Life and Correspondence of S. T. Coleridge (Vol. vii., p. 282.).—There can be but one opinion and feeling as to the want which exists for a really good biography of this intellectual giant; but there will be many dissentients as to the proposed biographer, whose life of Hartley Coleridge cannot be regarded as a happy example of this class of composition. A life from the pen of Judge Coleridge, the friend of Arnold and Whateley, is, we think, far more to be desired.

Θ.

Coniger, &c. (Vol. vii., pp. 182. 241.).—At one extremity, the picturesque range of hills which forms the noble background of Dunster Castle, co. Somerset, is terminated by a striking conical eminence, well-wooded, and surmounted by an embattled tower, erected as an object from the castle windows. This eminence bears the name of The Coniger, and is now a pheasant preserve. Mr. Hamper, in an excellent notice of Dunster and its antiquities, in the Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1808, p. 873., says:

"The Conygre, or rabbit-ground, was a common appendage to manor-houses."

Savage, however, in his History of the Hundred of Carhampton, p. 440., is of opinion that

"Coneygar seems to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Cyning, King; and the Mœso-Gothic Garas, the same as the Latin Domus, a house, that is, the king's house or residence. Mr. Hamper has some notion that Conygre means a rabbit-ground, &c., but Mr. H. does not go high enough for his etymology; besides, how does it appear that a rabbit-ground was at any time an appendage to manor-houses? There is no authority for the assertion."

I give you this criticism on Mr. Hamper valeat quantum, but am disposed to think he is right. At all events there are no vestiges of any building on the Coniger except the tower aforesaid, which was erected by the present Mr. Luttrell's grandfather.

Balliolensis.

In the Irish language, Cuinicear, pronounced "Keenèkar," is a rabbit-warren. Cuinin is the diminutive of cu, a dog of any sort; and from the Celtic cu, the Greeks took their word κυων, a dog. I am of opinion that the origin of rabbit is in the Celtic word rap, i. e. a creature that digs and burrows in the ground.

Fras. Crossley.

Cupid crying (Vol. i., p. 172.).—I had no means (for reasons I need not now specify) of referring to my 1st Vol. of "N. & Q." until yesterday, for the pretty epigram given in an English dress by Rufus and as the writer in the Athenæum, whose communication you quote on the same subject (Vol. i., p. 308.), observes "that the translator has taken some liberties with his text," I make no apology for sending you a much closer rendering, which hits off with great happiness the point and quaintness of the original, by a septuagenarian, whose lucubrations have already been immortalised in "N. & Q."

"De Cupidine.Cur natum cædit Venus? arcum perdidit, arcumNunc quis habet? Tusco Flavia nata solo:Qui factum? petit hæc, dedit hic, nam lumine formæDeceptus, matri se dari crediderat.""Cupid Crying.Wherefore does Venus beat her boy?He has mislaid or lost his bow:—And who retains the missing toy?Th' Etrurian Flavia. How so?She ask'd: he gave it; for the child,Not e'en suspecting any other,By beauty's dazzling light beguil'd,Thought he had given it to his mother."F. T. J. B.

Westminster Assembly of Divines (Vol. vii., p. 260.).—Dr. Lightfoot's interesting and valuable "Journal of the Assembly of Divines," from January 1, 1643, to December 31, 1644, will be found in the last volume of the edition of his Works, edited by Pitman, and published at London, 1825, in 13 vols. 8vo. I believe a few copies of the 13th volume were printed to be sold separately.